Gordon trying to revive stadium off-road racing

LOS ANGELES – After Coliseum officials went home for the day at around 7 p.m., Robby Gordon put his construction crew to work. By 2:30 a.m., a good portion of the USC football field had been paved over with asphalt, becoming a part of the track that his newly formed Stadium SUPER Trucks series will use in Saturday night's race.

Of course, Gordon didn't have permission to do it, necessitating the clandestine road work, which wasn't a big hit with the folks who run the stadium.

"They started saying it was just supposed to be dirt, and I told them that asphalt is a form of dirt if you want to use an analogy," said Gordon, a longtime Orange resident. "Then they wanted to know how we were going to slow the trucks down."

He put a few metal jumps in the paved portion of the course, which circles the football field and goes all the way up one side of the stadium's peristyles, leading drivers momentarily out of the Coliseum where they make a U-turn and jump back in.

There's some dirt in the track too, and that's where there's a jump that forces the trucks to clear at least 50 feet. Justin Lofton made it across rather easily during Thursday's practice, and when Gordon saw that he said he was going to push the landing zone back 50 feet.

Gordon has left behind driving in the IndyCar Series and NASCAR to focus on becoming a racing promoter, trying to revive the stadium off-road racing that Mickey Thompson made extremely popular in the 1980s and '90s.

He is taking a huge financial risk to do it. Everything he said is done "in house," including the track construction and the TV production that puts together the broadcasts, which air on NBC and NBC Sports Network. He even owns all of the trucks, selling franchises to the teams that will compete tonight at the Coliseum. There will be 13 trucks in the field tonight.

The Super Buggy and Super Trophy Kart classes will also compete at the Coliseum.

"This a new form of motor sports. The other forms get so expensive people can't do it, so we had to bring the cost of the vehicles down, and being a franchise we can get the players that we want involved," Gordon said.

PJ Jones and Jeff Ward (Newport Beach), who have nine Indy 500 starts between them, are among the franchise owners, and so is seven-time AMA dirt bike champion Ricky Johnson.

"The series is growing. We are just two races in, and we have a lot of buzz going, and I am happy about that," Gordon said. "I have won in every form of motor sports that I have driven in, and I think that I will be able to win as a promoter too."